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This Supreme Court case was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for Black people. -
The first group of African American aviators (pilots and airmen), in the U.S. Army Air Corps, who fought during World War II. These men advanced the Civil Rights Movement and helped encouraged integration of the U.S. armed forces. -
Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball. He was the first African American to play in the MLB outside of the segregated black league. Robinson helped raise $1 million dollars for the NAACP during the Civil Rights Movement. -
President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which declared “that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” It was an end to racial segregation in the military, a political act unmatched since the days of Reconstruction after the Civil War. -
Sweatt v. Painter, The United States Supreme Court ruled that separate law school facilities could not provide a legal education equal to that available at The University of Texas Law School, one of the nation’s ranking law schools. Four years later, Brown v. Board of Education ruled all racial segregation in public school unconstitutional. -
This landmark Supreme Court case ruled that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education. The Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, and declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. -
Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the civil rights movement. In December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began in Alabama and lasted more than a year, resulting eventually in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional. -
Called "the mother of the civil rights movement," Rosa Parks invigorated the struggle for racial equality when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks' arrest on December 1, 1955 launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott by 17,000 black citizens. -
In 1957, nine ordinary teenagers walked out of their homes and stepped up to the front lines in the battle for civil rights for all Americans. The media coined the name “Little Rock Nine" to identify the first African American students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School -
The result was the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote. -
The Greensboro Sit-In was a critical turning point in Black history and American history, bringing the fight for civil rights to the national stage. Its use of nonviolence inspired the Freedom Riders and others to take up the cause of integration in the South, furthering the cause of equal rights in the United States. -
The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional as well. -
The 24th amendment was important to the Civil Rights Movement as it ended mandatory poll taxes that prevented many African Americans. Poll taxes, , effectively prevented African Americans from having any sort of political power, but greatly in the South. -
It took some 30,000 U.S. troops, federal marshals and national guardsmen to get James Meredith to class after a violent campus uprising. Two people were killed and more than 300 injured. Some historians say the integration of Ole Miss was the last battle of the Civil War. -
Turning point for African Americans in colleges and equality. -
The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. At the march, final speaker Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism. -
The assassination was actually very helpful to the cause of civil rights because it put Lyndon B. Johnson as president. LBJ was very supportive of civil rights and was very good at pushing bills through congress. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. -
His martyrdom, ideas, and speeches contributed to the development of Black nationalist ideology and the Black Power movement and helped to popularize the values of autonomy and independence among African Americans in the 1960s and '70s -
How Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' Became a Turning Point in the Civil Rights Movement. The assault on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama helped lead to the Voting Rights Act. The assault on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama helped lead to the Voting Rights Act. -
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting -
His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era. -
It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public (public accommodations). Initially, the powers given to enforce the act were weak, but they were supplemented in later years.